I’m a single father but there isn’t anything single about it. I love my daughter, Roslyn, but sometimes I want to throw her into a woodchipper. I know that’s an insane thing to say. That’s just the crazy man that flashes in my head. And if you were a parent, then maybe you’d understand.
My daughter is driving her scooter in front of me right now. She pushes herself forward, a tiny bit at a time with little legs her mother and I created. Both of us. They are covered in cuts, bruises, different shades of rubicund flesh that’s glimmering with sweat on this rather balmy day. These walks are some of the best parts of my week. One foot in front of the other. We collect flowers that line that pathway—dandelions, daisies, tulips, baby’s breath, buttercups, and perennials. She grabs each one and hands them to her old man.
“I love you, Dad,” she says. “These flowers are for Mom. Keep them safe. Don’t let them fall.”
“Of course, my love. Anything for your mother and you.” Warmth always splayed across my face whenever I talk about her mother. I’ve been quite vulpine—a fox hiding in sheep’s clothing. A clever façade, at least clever enough to hide the dark, foreboding thoughts from the little girl I helped create. She is MY little girl.
Sometimes, when Julie was still with us … still alive, that is. She’d tell me that she made Roslyn, not me. And that meant the two of them would be more connected, more than I could ever aspire to be. That hurt me. She usually only made those accusations when I’d done something to upset her. Lord knows half of everything I did upset her. Send her into a tizzy— up a wall, what have you. When she got into those fume states, the ones where she questioned the love I had for my little girl— that’s when our fighting was the worst. It’s her fault.
“C’mon, Daddy! C’mon!” It’s getting dark; if we don’t hurry, we won’t be able to give mommy her flowers and say goodnight.” My daughter, she’s so sweet.
Sometimes when I’ve had too much to smoke, or drink, or eat, she’ll tuck me into bed and say goodnight. She’s six, but she’s very mature. When the police come around to ask me and her questions, they’re always saying so. The police always comment on how well-adjusted she is, considering what happened. No one really knows what happened. Not even me. When I try to remember the night that her mother went missing, I see red and black. I see a spectrum of bright and dark colors flashing almost kaleidoscopically. Still shots. Images. Polaroids that float around my mind and no matter how much I want them gone, they will not leave me alone. They haunt me.
“Don’t worry,” I tell Roslyn, “We’ll make it my love, mommy isn’t going anywhere.”
It was nighttime. I’m sure it was nighttime when it all started. Julie had tucked Roslyn in and put her to bed while I was taking a shower. It pissed me off. I wanted to say goodnight, but my wife tried to take that away from me. When I walked towards her room, Julie hissed at me and I threw my shoulder against the wall. We were having a bad day. The kind of day where that crazy man in my head tells me to throw my wife into that woodchipper— the same one I was telling you about earlier. And no matter what I did, my wife wouldn’t leave me alone. And that crazy man amplified her, echoed her, neither would shut the fuck up.
“Would you stop making so much noise?” Julie said. “You’re being selfish. Don’t you ever understand that? You’re always selfish. It’s like you don’t even care about her at all. It’s like you only care about yourself and need her to validate you. Don’t you see that, Jack? Why are you so fucking selfish, Jack?”
I wanted to grab her by the hair and smash her face through the floorboards. Solids through solids. I didn’t care about the screams she’d make, the cracks and splats of a skull shattering like a dinner plate covered in runny eggs. The repercussions of my actions at that moment. Roslyn growing up without a mother. Her father, Jack the Killer, spending his life in a penitentiary. But I held back. I promise I held myself back and tried to push the crazy man who sits on my brain away. I didn’t listen. I closed my eyes, ignoring my wife, abrading me with her vituperation. I put my head down. But then she said it … Julie said it. The truth is Julie always knew how to get the worst out of me.
Black.
Red.
Brown.
Grey.
Those colors ripped through my brain like cracked glass and the crazy man that lived rent free in my head took control.
Julie said I didn’t make Roslyn.
She said I didn’t give her anything.
It was all her.
She said Roslyn would eventually know what a loser her father was … not even the real one.
There’s an image implanted in my brain. I’m in someone else’s body, my hands, they are too big to be my own and they wrap around Julie’s neck.
Red, like blood.
Black, like loneliness.
Grey, like nothingness.
Brown, like decay.
Julie spasmed, squirming her body spasmodically like a fish between my hands until she fell onto the kitchen floor. I don’t remember what the man that killed my wife was saying … I know it was something. But I don’t remember. And then I heard Roslyn trying to open her bedroom door to check out what the commotion was. I threw her mother’s shaking body against it.
“Daddy? Mommy?” She said it over her mother’s last gasps for air.
“It’s ok, sweety,” I said, the man said, we all said, while I pinned Julie’s body against the door and kept it closed tightly. I didn’t want her to know … I still don’t want her to know. I don’t want to know. Because in that instant, if my daughter had seen me, then everything her mother had said would’ve come to fruition. A self-fulfilling prophecy of lunacy. My daughter wouldn’t love me any longer. I know she loves me … and now that her mother is gone— now that mommy’s not here to be my daughter’s favorite, well, now she must Love me Most.
My wife went limp. Her feet dangled like little chains and bumped against the wood of the door. When I look down at her pallid corpse, I don’t feel ashamed or bad. I’ve been freed. “Go back to sleep,” I said to my daughter, and she listened. She’s been listening to me a lot better now that her mother is gone. “I love you.” I said it while holding her mother’s slack flesh in my arms like some half-inflated, dead pool. Roslyn didn’t respond, but I waited. It infuriated me how long it took for her to respond, and, in my earnestness, I almost made the horrible mistake of throwing her mother’s corpse on top of her while she slept. It would’ve been kind of funny … right? Maybe not.
“I love you too, Dad.”
Bright lights.
Chewable oranges and yellows and lime greens. My decision to eliminate Julie was worth it after all. I said goodnight. A father should always be allowed to say goodnight to his daughter, don’t you think?
We’re at the end of this walk now. The police called earlier but I didn’t pick up because it’s been months and they still haven’t gotten a good lead yet. I’ve convinced myself that when they do, I’ll be happy because I’ll finally know who the killer is. They are only flashes. There are only flashes, and flashes don’t mean they’re true. It wasn’t the first time I thought about killing her, and it wouldn’t have been the last unless someone did it for me. Thank you.
“Daddy! Daddy!” I’m slightly behind my daughter. We’re standing under a large boulder; it’s in the shape of a whale. “May I have the flowers, Daddy?” The soil looks solid. Flashes. They are only flashes. How could someone dig such a large hole without being noticed? They are only flashes.
I hand my daughter the flowers; she places them on the unmarked grave. Somewhere below I swear I can feel Julie shifting as though she’s rolling over. Even in death, my wife cannot help herself.
The flowers are set.
“Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“I love you most.”
My daughter wouldn’t have said that when her mother was alive. It would’ve been a lie. But now that I’m the only one left, she says it twice and means it.
“I love you most.”
Nicholas Kellogg weaves chilling tales from his home in Connecticut, where he lives with his partner and balances fatherhood, with two toddlers under five and a full-time job. Early morning prior to work, he creates nightmares while many are still having them. Drawing inspiration from the eerie realities of everyday life while exploring the darkness beneath the ordinary.
Published 8/6/27